Health insurance, explained

To change insurer for next year, your cancellation must arrive by 30 November.
Request arrival is what counts, don't send it too late.

• ✗Does not work. Changing your deductible mid-year. Only available from 1 January.
• ✗Does not work. Leaving a managed-care model mid-year. Joining from a standard model can be done anytime, leaving waits for 1 January.
• ✗Does not work. Changing insurer mid-year, from any other plan. Only available for the Standard model with the CHF 300 deductible.
• ✗Does not work. Switching while you owe your insurer. Unpaid debts block transfers until settled.

Insurers send next year's approved premium 2 months ahead, mentioning your right to leave.

KVG Art. 7 (SR 832.10) · KVV Art. 94 · KVV Art. 100 · KVG Art. 64a

A cheaper model does not buy you less medicine, it binds you to a route.
The insurer only has to pay for treatments these selected providers carried out or referred you to.

• Standard. Any doctor, no first stop.
• Family doctor. One named practice sees you first.
• HMO. A group practice sees you first.
• Other or alternative. Telemedicine or pharmacy-first.

Ignore the required first point of contact and you might end up paying the bill with no coverage.

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What every model pays for

• ✓Covered. Treating illness.
  Exams and treatment by doctors, prescribed lab tests, medicines, rehabilitation.
• ✓Covered. Hospital.
  The general ward of a listed hospital in your canton.
• ✓Covered. Maternity.
  Check-ups, delivery, breastfeeding advice...
• ✓Covered. Getting there.
  A contribution to medically necessary transport and rescue.
• ✗Not covered. Everyday dental.
  Covered only when a severe illness or an accident is behind it.
• ✗Not covered. Private and semi-private wards.
  That comfort is what supplementary insurance sells.
• ✗Not covered. Anything beyond the list.
  All four models buy exactly the same care.
  An insurer cannot add extras to basic insurance to win over clients, which is why you can compare on price alone.

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How much cheaper are these models?

For 2026, comparing each region's cheapest plan per model with its cheapest standard plan for an adult at CHF 300 (and no accident coverage):

• Family doctor & HMO run a median ~10% cheaper.
• Telemedicine & Pharmacy plans run ~13% cheaper.

The gap swings region by region, from nothing at all to about 16%.
So, the number that matters is the one in your own comparison.

KVG Art. 25, 29, 31, 34 and 41 · KVV Art. 99 and Art. 101 paras 2 and 3.

Your deductible is what you pay for healthcare before your insurer starts sharing the cost. The standard is:

You pay the first CHF 300 of care yourself. That is the default deductible: CHF 300 a year, unless you choose a higher one.

Above it you still pay a 10% share of every bill. Up to CHF 700 in a year, so the most any adult can pay for care is their deductible plus CHF 700.

• A year with CHF 2’000 of bills. You pay CHF 470.00 + your premiums. CHF 300, plus 10% of the remaining CHF 1’700, so CHF 470.00.
• And you can change this limit in exchange for lower insurance premiums. Deductibles of 500 to 2’500 in steps of 500 for adults, 100 to 600 in hundreds for children.

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Is a higher deductible worth it?

Yes, if you spend little.
Moving from CHF 300 to CHF 2’500 means having to pay CHF 2’200 more before the insurer covers anything, in exchange for a lower premium all year.

The two are even at about CHF 1’633 of care.

Worst case is paying extra CHF 1’000. CHF 2’200 difference, minus the CHF 1’200 premium saved.
Best case is saving the entire CHF 1’200.

Past CHF 9’500 of care both deductibles have hit the limit and you don't pay any extra for the year.

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What about children?

A child pays no deductible, and their share stops at CHF 350. Half the adult's CHF 700, so one child's worst possible year is CHF 350 against an adult's CHF 1’000.

Children at one insurer share a ceiling between them. Learn more about this under the using one insurer or mixing insurers section.

KVG Art. 62 paras 2 and 3 and KVG Art. 64 paras 2 and 4 · KVV Art. 93 paras 1 and 3, Art. 95 para 2bis and Art. 103 paras 1 and 2.

Fully covered means at least 8 hours a week with one employer.
Below that, the law treats accidents on the way to work as work accidents, so you are covered at work and commuting and nowhere else, and suspension is refused.

• ✓Allowed. One employer, 10 hours a week.
• ✗Not allowed. One employer, 7 hours a week. Under the 8 hour threshold.
• ✗Not allowed. Two employers, 6 hours each. The 8 hours are per employer, so they do not add up.

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When your job ends, accident cover returns to your health insurance.
Your health insurer takes the accident risk back automatically when your employer's cover stops, and you pay the full premium again. Your employer has to tell you in writing before that happens, and you then have 1 month from their letter to notify your insurer.

What staying covered costs.
Accident cover adds a median of 7.4% to the premium, and 98% of plans sit between 5% and 7.6%.
About 1% of plans add almost nothing, so it is still worth checking your own.

KVG Art. 8 · KVV Art. 11, Art. 89 and Art. 90c · UVV Art. 13 (SR 832.202).

One thing that decides your costs is where you live.
Premiums are graded by canton, and within a canton by premium region, set centrally by the Federal Department of Home Affairs. A postal code or locality name isn't always enough to answer that.

Postal code 2814 is 3 regions. Every one of its 4 entries is called Roggenburg, in SO-0, BL-2 and JU-0. Same name, same postal code, different price.
270 of the 3’178 postal codes in the federal data straddle two or more regions in 2026, which is why this site sometimes asks you to pick a specific locality.

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Age works the same way, and is simpler.
The bands are children, young adults and adults, decided by your year of birth, not by your birthday. That is why the form asks for a year and nothing more.

KVG Art. 61 paras 2, 2bis and 3 · KVV Art. 91 para 3 and Art. 92 para 4.

Some do, and it is worth real money.
A median of CHF 41.00 a month off that child, and CHF 128.40 at its largest.
These plans are already included in the calculations.

But who gets the discount applied varies

• Discounted rates are applied differently. Some file a cheaper rate from the third child, so 2 kids end up without a discount.
  Some give it to every child once it reaches 3+ or even 2+ children at the same insurer.
  And others file no reduction at all.

How it shows up in your results

The plan name says which rate a child is on.
A row reading (Third child onwards), (Two or more children) or (Three or more children) after the plan name is that insurer's reduced child rate.

These reduced rates are an observation from the tariff data.

Every person has their own contract.
Basic insurance is always individual. There is no family policy, so putting the household at the same insurer combines nothing.

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What keeping the children together gets you

• The main reason, a sibling premium reduction. Insurers that file a cheaper rate for several children only apply it to the ones they cover together. It is already priced in the premiums here and is one of the main benefits to keep kids insured together.
• A shared ceiling on what they pay in care. The children at one insurer owe at most CHF 1’000 between them.
  It is a combined ceiling for the children, adults carry their own separately.

What the shared ceiling is worth

Below CHF 10’000 of care it returns nothing at all.
The children pay a tenth of their bills, between them, their combined share only crosses CHF 1’000 after that much in healthcare bills.
These are worst-case limits; most years they will not be reached and in practice, not as relevant.

On chosen deductibles the ceiling is a different figure.
Twice what one child could pay, being their chosen deductible plus CHF 350, and where the children hold different deductibles the insurer sets it. Whichever figure applies, it belongs to the insurer, so splitting the children is what gives it up.

KVG Art. 64 para 4 · KVV Art. 93 para 3.

Because the premium is not what you end up paying.
Switzerland redistributes the CO₂ & VOCs levies, among others, as a flat amount credited against the health-insurance premium.

In 2026 it is CHF 61.80 per person a year, which arrives as CHF 5.15 a month.
It is the same amount, per person, not a discount one insurer offers over another, so a household of four has CHF 247.20 a year taken off its premiums between them.

USG Art. 35a para 9

From the federal publications, automatically updated once every year.
Every premium is published by the Federal Office of Public Health as open data, and every premium region by priminfo. Both are served here as static files.

• Nothing is looked up from a federal source while you use the form. No query reaches them while you use the form, and nothing you type leaves your device.
• Every file your browser downloads is the same for every visitor. So nothing it asks for says which premium region you are in.

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If a figure here disagrees with priminfo, priminfo is right.
These are their numbers, copied. A disagreement means this site has joined something wrongly or is serving a stale copy, and both are worth knowing about. Every results table has a Report values link at the bottom that opens an email with what you were looking at already filled in.

Credits lists the sources in full, with links to the originals.